


A Kiss With A Fist Is Better Than None

by starlitseas



Category: Baldi's Basics (Video Game), Baldi's Basics In Learning And Education (Video Game)
Genre: Canon X OC - Freeform, Drama, F/M, Hatemance, Kismesissitude, M/M, Minor Violence, Non-Homestuck Kismesissitude, OC, OC X CANON, One-Shot, Oneshot, Original Character - Freeform, also i know susan if of questionable canon-ness right now but, baldi is my True Problematic Fav and i just, child abuse implications, hate snog, i am... coping., it's nice to have another layer of drama, so i'll have my self-insert do it for me lol, sort of edgy, want to whip him into shape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 03:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15964097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlitseas/pseuds/starlitseas
Summary: Mr. Reeves has always had a good intuition when it came to other people. His employer, Mr. Baldimore, is no exception.So when Reeves' suspicions about him are confirmed, things understandably take a turn toward the messy.





	A Kiss With A Fist Is Better Than None

Although he acted jovially enough to his employer, Reeves was always a bit suspicious of him.

Reeves had what some would call scarily accurate gut feelings about people.

It was the side effect of a more than troubled past. Reeves was secretly bitter that his intuition apparently ‘had’ to develop like that, but, like everything else seemingly scary about him, he kept it a secret.

Reeves’ gut feelings about his employer, Mr. Baldimore, were that he was hiding something as well.

The way Mr. Baldimore’s expression would darken for a split second whenever a student slipped up, the way he seemed to grip onto his ever-present ruler tightly when it seemed like a student would fail an objective given to them… Reeves’ thoughts about what the man was hiding were, to say the least, not very good at all.

To make matters worse, they were confirmed one day.

A student had to come in after school that fateful day. A friend of theirs left some notebooks behind, and, being the good friend they were, the student had come back to retrieve them.

Apparently Mr. Baldimore wanted to play an extracurricular game with the student. Answer the problems given on the new Thinkpads, and they’d get the notebooks. It seemed easy enough, but then things took a turn for the worse.

Then the Thinkpads glitched. It was always the third question that would corrupt itself into being nigh unsolvable. Any press of a button was an immediate 'wrong' answer.

Miscommunication could be a killer if you let it be one.

Reeves was contentedly packing up for the day when he heard the scream. It wasn’t the usual joyful screaming of a child at play, but instead the fearful screaming of a child who was now crying for help.

The screaming was starting to get closer, and as quickly as the scream rang out throughout the halls of the school, the door to the art room flung open.

It was the student, eyes brimming with tears and their arms full of notebooks. Before Reeves could ask what was going on, the student answered what was on his mind, babbling something about Mr. Baldimore having gone ‘crazy’.

Reeves put a comforting hand on the student’s shoulder, not wanting to believe that his intuition was coming true.

“Hey now, I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,” Reeves soothed. “I’m sure Mr. Baldimore’s not that mad.”

Reeves’ statement was proven wrong by the furious smacking of a ruler approaching.

The art teacher said no more and didn’t think twice about shoving the student behind him and bracing himself for the worst.

Mr. Baldimore opened the door to the art room back up, hitting his ruler against his hand threateningly.

“I _told_ you that I get angrier with every problem you get wrong,” Baldi intoned.

Reeve’s blood went cold. That wasn’t his employer’s voice. It was considerably less nasally than normal, more deliberate, and had a disgustingly sharp edge to it. That couldn’t be his voice.

It was still coming from Mr. Baldimore, though, and Reeves just had to accept that.

“S-see, I told you!” the student exclaimed fearfully. “Mr. Baldimore’s--”

With the look in Baldi’s eyes, Reeves knew he couldn’t waste any time.

“It’ll be okay,” Reeves said quickly, trying to comfort himself and the student at the same time. “Just run when I say to.”

Set off at the sheer _gall_ to talk about any sort of escape plan in front of his face, Baldi lunged.

And Reeves caught him. The impact hurt, but Reeves got a grip on his employer and didn’t let go.

“Run!” Reeves shouted. “ ** _Now_ **!”

The student hesitated for a moment, but they bolted a moment later, leaving Baldi and Reeves behind in the art room.

Reeves began hyperventilating through clenched teeth as he and Baldi fought to knock the other one over. All he could see now, his vision blurring with tears, was a look of sheer rage on Baldi’s face.

As the two of them struggled against one another, two thoughts entered the anxious Reeves’ mind.

  1. Reeves couldn’t keep this up forever. Baldi had a height advantage, and most likely a weight advantage because of that as well, despite Reeves’ own hidden chubbiness.  
  
and
  2. Anyone like Mr. Baldimore could become a good person again with enough whipping into shape. Reeves sure was whipped into shape once before, even though he was never a bad person beforehand.



As if entirely on auto-pilot, Reeves' hyperventilation slowed into simple, heavy breathing. His grip on his employer tightened and he pushed him into the art supply closet. Then, gripping at the collar of his green sweater, Reeves forced the enraged Baldi to look into his wide eyes.

"Baldi," he breathed. "If you ever feel the need to— to—"

It was hard to say. Reeves had to swallow the bile in his throat before continuing frankly.

"If you ever feel the need to hurt someone, you come hurt _me_."

At this, Baldi seemed to snap back into reality. His posture relaxed to more of a scared tension than an angry one, his ruler dropped to the floor, and even his voice adopted its usual nasal tone once more.

"Wh-why would I ever do that? You're one of my—"

Reeves found himself angry at Baldi's sudden change back to normalcy. Without thinking, he swiftly slammed the taller man into one of the shelves in the cramped closet. Baldi winced audibly, and tubes of paint alongside miscellaneous school-grade boxes of crayons and pencils fell to the floor around the two of them. Reeves leaned in closer to Baldi's face.

"Don't you fuck around with me," Reeves growled. "You were just about to hurt that kid. They're one of your _students_. The only difference between me and them is that I’m an adult that can defend myself."

This was the first time Reeves had seen a sliver of fear on Baldi’s visage. He actually seemed genuinely scared, but Reeves wasn’t going to let up. The art teacher felt a deep pit of disgust with himself growing in the pit of his stomach, but he definitely wasn’t going to let up now.

“So I’ll say this again,” Reeves scowled. “If you want to hurt a student, you come hurt **_me_ **.”

“I just wanted to help them!”, Baldi retorted, looking away from Reeves momentarily.

Another slam and a wince.

“Helping a kid isn’t coming after them with a ruler, for God’s sake!” Reeves yelled. “What’s gotten into you!?”

Baldi started struggling in Reeves’ grip again.

“Let me go!”

Reeves persisted, “Answer me!”

Baldi delivered a kick to the shorter teacher’s shin, and Reeves staggered, but he still didn’t let go.

“Answer me **now**!”

Baldi sounded like he was at his wit’s end.

“It just— Everything went red! I just—”

“That’s no excuse,” Reeves glared, cutting the other man off. “That’ll never be an excuse.”

Baldi went silent.

Reeves said no more, a look of angry and tear-stained determination still on his face.

After what felt like an eternity in the silent tension, Reeves looked closer at Baldi.

And Baldi looked closer at Reeves.

The fact that it was rather cramped in this closet, and that their struggling within it had made the air uncomfortably warm, became more apparent.

The two of them were rather close together as well.

Other than the present tension, another kind of tension was setting in. It was an unusual situation for the both of them, to say the least. Baldi was used to being the one in control, and Reeves was used to being the one _being_ controlled. The tables were turning in this small room, and it filled the two of them with an excitement that neither of them could put any kind of word to.

They didn’t know who locked their lips with who first, but it happened.

The moment was full of a particular kind of passion. It was a kind of passion that only two people with horrible secrets of their own could share. It was the kind motivated by a terrible mixture of vendettas buried in the past, presently blooming vendettas, stress, and a specific kind of _hunger_.

Reeves soon pulled away first, panting. His sweaty fingers were still tightly wrapped around Baldi’s sweater collar. He said nothing as he eyed Baldi’s face.

Baldi was the one who spoke first, sputtering as he forced words to come out of his mouth.

“I-I’m— I’m so sorry, that—”

He was at a loss of words for once. He had a family outside of these walls, but he had still just practically made out with one of his faculty entirely on impulse.

Reeves smiled.

It was an awful smile, but Reeves smiled.

“Don’t be sorry about what we did just now,” the art teacher said, words like knives. “Just be sorry for what you did earlier.”

Baldi paused, then opened his mouth. Reeves continued before Baldi could speak, though.

“Because if you’re not sorry now, you will be in the future.”

The red that lingered in the corners of Baldi’s eyes was slowly creeping back at that statement. Was he being _threatened_? He kept it at bay, though, just to see what exactly Reeves was getting at.

He forced out his words, “Now, now, I think we should just. Leave.”

“Only if you promise that you won’t go after that student again,” Reeves replied.

The redness crept back up again. Baldi felt like if he promised, he’d be lying.

“...Your silence isn’t very reassuring,” Reeves said plainly. “See, I don’t think you’d want the details of what happened in here getting out. I’ve seen that cute picture on your desk. I’ve walked past it enough to remember it very clearly, actually.”

The red in Baldi’s vision overtook him.

“Don’t you dare,” he spat out. “Don’t you _dare_ _— Don’t you_ **_dare_ ** _—”_

“I know for a fact that your wife wouldn’t like this.”

Baldi elbowed Reeves in the stomach, and it was suddenly Reeves’ turn to get pushed around now. Instead of a shelf, though, Baldi backed him up to the very back wall of the supply closet.

“There we go!” Reeves laughed unintentionally as soon as he caught his breath against the brick wall. “Hurt me more!”

Baldi obliged, and Reeves had the wind knocked out of him once more.

How _dare_ Reeves bring his family into this.

Reeves was sinking to the floor, but the art teacher grabbed one of the tubes of paint that were scattered about and popped the top off of it. With another slap to his person, Reeves splattered the paint onto Baldi.

It was red.

How appropriate.

At least Reeves was right about him being able to defend himself. He was kicking and punching Baldi right back like a wild animal. He was grabbing more paint to spill onto Baldi among other crafty tricks that sent both of them slipping on paint and broken crayons.

Only a loud crack managed to stop the two’s fighting.

Reeves' glasses had been broken.

After exchanging looks of confusion with the reality they’ve thrust themselves into, the two of them started laughing. This was silly.

It really wasn’t, but it just felt like it was in that moment.

Baldi shakily helped Reeves sit up before sitting down on the floor himself.

After their laughter subsided, there was another period of dead quiet between the two of them. There was no more tension, at least. They had practically beat the Devil out of each other, and they were now sitting on the dirty floor, totally spent.

“...I’m sorry, Mr. Baldimore,” Reeves murmured softly, looking over at him behind his cracked glasses. “I shouldn’t have threatened you like that.”

Baldi simply took a deep breath in and sighed. The wet paint on his sweater was finally starting to get to him.

“I’m sorry, too,” he replied.

“You still really shouldn’t have tried hurting that student, though,” Reeves remarked, casually taking off his glasses and wiping the paint off of them on his smock. He scowled lightly when the cracked lens popped out of the frame. “That’s going to be an investigation if the poor kid tells anyone what happened.”

Avoiding the subject of the student, Baldi started, “You know, I can pay to replace those for you.”

“No, no,” Reeves shook his head. “I have an extra pair in my bag.”

“What about the, er…” Baldi looked around the mess of a supply closet. He was kind of taken aback by the pandemonium they wrought in that small space. “...Paints?”

“I get a teacher’s discount everywhere I go,” Reeves shrugged. “I got it.”

It was certainly more awkward than anything, now.

Baldi cleared his throat.

“Do you want to walk out together?”, he asked.

“...Sure,” Reeves smiled, much less awfully this time. “Everyone else has probably gone home by now.”

The walk out of the art room and to the front doors of the schoolhouse was just as awkward as their time in the supply closet together, but they managed to fill it with meaningless small talk.

“Let’s cut to the chase here,” Reeves finally cut Baldi off, bringing up the two’s fresh wounds. “I know we both don’t care if today’s been clear out. Just... Don’t forget what I told you earlier. You come to me first when you’re angry, and we’ll sort things out.”

“And if I catch you even _thinking_ about hurting a hair on a student’s head,” he continued, “I’ll tell everyone about what happened. You’d have to kill me to keep me from telling. Got it?”

Caught off-guard, Baldi just nodded absently.

With that, the two teachers went their separate ways.

The drive home felt longer than usual.

Baldi got home a little late that evening, but not late enough to raise any suspicion. He was thankful for that, at least.

Baldi’s wife, Susan, was busy cooking when he walked in with the myriad of dried paint splattered on his sweater. She gasped when she saw him, putting the plastic ladle in her hand down on the counter and rushing over to him.

“What happened to you, honey?” Susan asked worriedly. “You look like you got into a fight with a whole craft store!”

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” Baldi half-joked.

Susan’s previous worry seemed to rush right out of her, and she grinned, “Did you win?”

The sight of her smile calmed the schoolhouse teacher’s nerves. There was no red lingering in the corners of his vision when Susan was around.

“It came to a _draw,_ ” Baldi snerked.

Susan laughed and hugged her husband tightly.

“Well, go get cleaned up,” she said, looking up at him. “Dinner’s almost ready. We’re having your favourite stew!”

“Yes, dear,” Baldi smiled. He practically melted when Susan kissed his cheek.

Though he was happy to be home, Baldi couldn’t help but to be haunted by the incident between himself and Reeves. The passion they shared between their lips and the punches they threw at each other chilled him to the bone.

However, if Reeves was as determined as he looked back in that damnable closet, it would continue to repeatedly chill him to the bone for a very, very long time.

That was Baldi’s own gut feeling.

And it couldn’t have been more right.

**Author's Note:**

> this is because i pulled an all-nighter and started thinking about what i wanted for my birthday coming up. i want some oc x canon spades gdi!! also shoutout to my emilove for reading this first over discord! love you, valentine <3


End file.
